Lotus Effect

Either way, by the time I hear him enter the keycard into his hotel room door, I’ve rehearsed the fib too many times in my head for it to come out naturally. So when he asks, “How are your parents?”

I blurt: “I went to see Cameron.”

It’s midnight and he doesn’t look jetlagged in the least. His slate-gray eyes are clear and alert, and they’re assessing me coolly, calmly.

He sets his duffle bag down in the corner, then peels off his suit jacket. “Did she know Mike Rixon?”

The breath I’ve been holding eases out. Rhys doesn’t do confrontation. If he had been upset, felt deceived, he’d have simply left the room without a word. I’d rather he admonish me for being reckless than suffer his stone-cold silent treatment. It’s hard to bring him back from that.

I tug my long T-shirt down my thighs and cross my ankles on the bed. “She seemed like she had no idea that Torrance had a brother.”

“Did you show her a picture of him? See if she recognized Rixon from the Dock House?” Black tie hung loose around his neck, he removes his shoulder harness and takes a seat across from me on the bed.

“No. I didn’t…” I should have, and I probably would’ve thought to do so had I not been so focused on Drew. “And the element of surprise is gone now. Going back to ask probably won’t render any new information on that front. Especially since we didn’t part on the best of terms.”

The stern contort of his expression relaxes at this. “I take it she wasn’t exactly happy to dredge up the past.”

I glance at the floor. “She lied to me,” I say. “I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before. I can’t blame faulty memory there; I knew something was off. I just didn’t know what or didn’t want to know. Maybe.” When I look at him, the commiseration I glean in his eyes is a comfort. “She’d been sleeping with Drew.” I barrel ahead before he can start an interrogation. I fill him in on everything Cam revealed. “She claims she wasn’t with him in that capacity the night of the attack, but that she was with him at his house. That he couldn’t have possibly went back to the Dock House.”

Rhys takes it all in, then says, “Not unless he never left.”

Alarm skitters through me at that realization. “The drive from the bar to Drew’s house then is over an hour.”

“It would be tight, but we don’t actually know the time of your attack. It could’ve been an hour after Cam left, or it could’ve been five minutes. Which would make it possible.”

And Drew allowing Cam to come over gives him a conspirator—two alibies in case one falls through. “Drew told her not to tell the police the truth, probably claiming that it would hurt me further and damage our friendship. He knew he’d be a suspect, and sleeping with my best friend and roommate would make him look even worse to the case detectives.”

Rhys nods knowingly. “We profiled your attacker as intelligent and cautious. Abbot always appeared that way to me.”

Which means if Drew was behind my attempted murder, he put thought into it. Premeditated. Not a crime of chance.

I stand, feeling sick. Start to pace. “I never thought, not once, not really, that Drew could be behind it…that he could be capable…”

Even when Cam revealed he was at the bar, it just didn’t compute. What reason did he have to want to harm me—to want me dead? I wasn’t the one pregnant. I wasn’t a threat to his freedom or his career. “It makes no sense,” I whisper to myself.

Lost in thought, I don’t realize Rhys is standing behind me until I feel the charge of his skin near mine. He touches my arm, and I flinch.

“It’s all right,” he says, but he removes his hand as I turn to face him.

I cross my arms, acutely aware of the thin material of my shirt, the only thing I’m wearing other than boy shorts, the flimsiest of barriers between us. “Do you think he could’ve really done this to me?”

Rhys knows people. He reads suspects and motives. His opinion is the only one that matters.

He removes his necktie, wraps it around his hand as he considers this. He exhales heavily, then: “I don’t know.”

His admission shocks me. I shake my head, unable to accept that Rhys doesn’t at least have a theory. “You interviewed him. You’ve had to consider the prospect before now. That Dutton missed something, or just couldn’t put it together—”

“And I did. I have,” he cuts in, his voice low, worn. “What is Abbot’s motive, Hale?”

Right. Motive. A weight sits heavily on my shoulders.

“Think,” Rhys urges. “After seeing Cam, does anything come back to you? Anything at all?”

I look away as the same unsettling anxiety creeps over me—the one I experienced when Rhys and I returned to the Dock House. Back then, he implored me to remember, to think… As if all I had to do was tap into those memories and the answers would tumble free.

“It’s so frustrating,” I say, shaking my head. “Being back here.”

His frown deepens. “I know.” A short beat. “We looked at Drew hard when we first reopened your case, but just like now, even after this new information, we’re unclear on motive.”